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Source: DICOBE-00251 – Heather C – WEST CENTRAL REGIONAL FORUM – 1980-03-14.mp3 File: dicobe-00251-heather-c-west-central-regional-forum-1980-03-14.mp3 Duration: 01:22:15
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And with confidence, I present to you Heather See. Please welcome her in a real good manner. Hi everybody, my name's Heather, I'm an alcoholic. I'd like to talk tonight about the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. I believe very strongly that we have some precise, clear-cut instructions. And because of those precise, clear-cut instructions, I've been allowed to recover from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. See, there's one thing that I don't ever want to be, it's sober and miserable. I'd just as soon be drunk and miserable. We can't get sober and happy with willpower, but we can get sober and happy with willingness. And I'm alive and well to tell you that that's the only thing you need for a happy and useful sobriety.
Because you see, I attended Alcoholics Anonymous for the first time in one of those nut factories. When I was 15, already I was over the edge. And I attended those meetings and I thought to myself, yeah, I'll come back to AA, but I'll come back when I'm about 40 and I'm too old and burnt out to do anything else. So I never disputed my membership in Alcoholics Anonymous, you just weren't going to beat me out of 20 years of good drinking time first.
However, it was not to be that way. And so I went to AA for eight years, off and on, always for some function or another, a new job or to get the family reorganized or any number of reasons, but I didn't ever come with the one essential tool, willingness. Well, the last time I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, I fell into the hands of some pretty tough sponsors and they didn't give me any reason to wonder what I should or shouldn't do. They laid it out for me pretty plain. And that's what I love about this book, its simplicity.
There's no mistaking what they say. When they make certain statements in this book, you can't misinterpret them. One of the things that they tell us is that willingness and open-mindedness are essential. It doesn't say optional. Another thing that they tell us is here are the steps we took, not here are the steps we read about, thought about and talked about. Alcoholics Anonymous doesn't work through osmosis. It won't come through the seat of your pants off the chair. Here are the steps we took. And if you want what we got, then you've got to took them. I had to fully concede to my innermost self that I was alcoholic. Now anybody can say, my name is Heather and I'm an alcoholic, if that's what it takes to get the law off your tail or whatever trouble you happen to be in, that's not too hard to say. Fully conceding it to your innermost self is a little different matter, however. Perhaps I can best illustrate this by relating to you some of the experience that I had with conceding to my innermost self. Being single, occasionally a young fellow would ask me out now and then. And I would be trying to stay sober. And so I'd say, no, I can't go because I don't drink. And I really thought that, you know, that you can't go out if you don't drink. I mean, where would you go? And so they'd say to me, well, don't worry about it, Heather. By midnight, I'll cut you off, I promise. And I'll watch how much you drink during the evening. And whatever happens by midnight, that'll be it. And I would go along with this. And of course, midnight would roll around and he'd say, okay, Heather, that's it. And I'd say, bugger off, I'm drinking. And there would be me at 5.30 in the morning sitting on the curb wondering how it all happened again. And I guess the reason was, is I had not yet conceded to my innermost self, in spite of what others may think, that I was in fact alcoholic. And what does that mean to me? I've heard a great many people have an aversion to the word alcoholic. But I got to tell you, by the time I got here the last time, the word alcoholic sounded an awful lot nicer than what they had been calling me. Had a nice medical tone to it.
[00:05:04]
Clear-cut directions are given. And you see, I wanted to know why I couldn't just simply quit drinking. Why elimination of my drinking was but a beginning. And I think it's rather well explained in the doctor's opinion when they say that the alcoholic is restless, irritable, and discontented. That about sums me up. Unless I can again experience that sense of ease and comfort, and isn't just that exactly what it did, a sense of ease and comfort by taking a few drinks. Drinks which I saw others taking with impunity. They never got into the same kind of jams I got into.
And so if you take away my sense of ease and comfort, all you have is an alcoholic trying to face life, still restless, still irritable, and still discontented. And so I guess that's why there's twelve steps instead of two. Step one and step twelve. You've all seen people try to successfully practice those two steps and miss the middle. And it has almost the same effect as trying to physically stand on the bottom step of a set of stairs and put your other foot on the twelfth step. You fall on your bum in the middle. And it works that way with this program, too.
And I really believe that my sense of ease and comfort has to come from the people in Alcoholics Anonymous and the program laid out for me to practice. And as soon as I'm not practicing this program or as soon as I'm not working with these people, something goes wrong. And again, I become restless, irritable, and discontented without the aid of my sense of ease and comfort. So these twelve steps are mighty important to me. They are my life. They're the very existence of me. When I took a look at that first step, that we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives, I questioned this about could not manage my own life. I could manage it fine if you guys would just leave me alone. I'd had some bad luck. I looked at those three concepts that our friend Jim read tonight. A, that we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. And what does my life consist of? See, I've seen many AA members come in and say, I never missed a day's work in my life. My wife and my kids are still with me. What do you mean my life's unmanageable? My life and the happiness thereof consists of feelings. How I feel. Circumstances don't matter much. It's how I feel. And my feelings were mighty unmanageable. I laughed when I was supposed to cry. I cried when I was supposed to laugh. I talked when I should shut up. And I shut up when I was supposed to say something. And it never worked out right. And even when it accidentally did, by good luck rather than good management, I still didn't feel like it had. So my feelings were very unmanageable. I had no control over temper. I had no control over depression. I had no control over fear. I had no control over hate. I didn't understand about resentments. I hate you. I didn't resent you. Couldn't control any of my feelings. And so when I thought about my life being unmanageable in the context of feelings, it certainly was. B, that probably no human power could have relieved us of our alcoholism. I guess I've had an example of every human power on the face of the earth that's practiced in the Western Hemisphere. See, I had the power of psychiatry. I had the power of fear. The police, you know, try to scare you into these things. So I had the power of fear, the power of psychiatry. I had been visited by many clergymen. I had all kinds of people, well-trained, who had tried to relieve me of my alcoholism, not the least of which was the power of love. See, I have a family that I would probably do anything under the sun for. If one of them was drowning and I couldn't swim, I'd likely jump off the bridge to try and save them anyway.
However, when they suggested that maybe I should can the drinking, we came to the parting of the
[00:10:01]
ways. So even as much as I loved my family and I hated that look of utter pain on their faces, I found a solution to that. Move. Quitting drinking was not the answer. And the biggest and most powerful human resource that I knew of, me, didn't seem to be able to do anything about my alcoholism either. And I tried staying sober for various reasons and people, but it doesn't take very long until I would promise myself faithfully, I'll never do that to her again. Never, never, never. And I would swear on a stack of Bibles not ever again would I hurt my family that way.
And somewhere along the line, and that's fine, you get away with that as long as that kind of thinking is operative. But what happens when alcoholic thinking takes over? Somewhere in my head a button would turn and I would say, I don't care what they think. I'm over 21. I can drink if I please. And once you develop that attitude, it's just a matter of swallowing. So I had to take a look at the propositions. A, that I was alcoholic and couldn't manage my life. And B, that probably no human power could have relieved me of my alcoholism. And if there is no God, which I've heard the occasional AA member think, then I might as well shut my book, walk out of Alcoholics Anonymous, and go on to the bitter end, blotting out the intolerance of my situation as best I can. Or the other is to accept spiritual help. Yeah. But that's what it says. C, that God could and would if he were sought. So that didn't leave me much option. It's almost like going to the racetrack. I had been there and bet on the tractors often enough to know that it was time to start betting on the horses. I had bet on my own willpower often enough to know that I'd better hope there was a God. And I think that they write A, B, C for a real good reason. Because the very next line in our book says, being convinced of A, B, C, we were at step three. And I looked around and I said, well, where did step one and two go? And they're there and contained in the ABCs.
And so when I took a look at step three, I was quite prepared to have a little go around with it because after all, it wasn't that status quo. You were supposed to have trouble with step three. I suggest that if you're having trouble with step three, the problem is really in step two. And if you're having trouble with step two, really the problem is step one. And I believe that of all these steps, whatever step you think you got trouble with, it's the one before. Because each of these steps leads us into the next step. It tells us in step three in two and a half pages, not about God, but about self. And they make some pretty wide open remarks that are pretty hard to take. Pretty hard to misunderstand. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness or it will kill us. You can't say what does that mean? Self-centeredness is the root of our troubles.
And I guess that's why the doctor's opinion is written the way it is. Take away my sense of ease and comfort, I still got me. Self-centeredness is the root of my trouble. So they talked to us in our big book about comprehending how much trouble self has really got us into. And how that really is the problem. And that's the problem with step three. Not God or no God. Is that the problem is understanding that self-centeredness is the root of our trouble. That it's killed us alcoholics.
It stood in our way. And once we understand that, it says we made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the
[00:15:03]
My only understanding of a power greater than myself at that time was a four-letter word. I was big on those. Those were all I knew was four-letter words. So it's not surprising the God of my understanding was a four-letter word, only it was hope. You see, that's what I got, hope. And by the time I looked at step three, I was aware that the opposite of self-centeredness was unselfish and that if I expected to get anywhere in this world at all and stay dry for any length of time at all and be happy at all, I had to try to learn to become an unselfish human being.
And so that's all they're asking for in step three is a decision to carry on with steps four through twelve, which are the exercises that help us become unselfish. And that's how basically simply I understood that. And I guess it couldn't have worked out that bad because I'm a very happy person today. I love the simplicity. Made a decision. It's like making a decision to rob a bank. Not too much happens one way or the other until you go and do something about that decision.
And it's the same for us in step three. You can make all the decisions to go on that you like, but if you don't go on, not too much is going to happen. They even give us a prayer to use in step three. I guess the founders of our fellowship understood that not too many of us have pursued a career in prayer writing. So they wrote one for us. And that prayer goes, God, I offer myself to thee to build with me and to do with me as thou wilt.
Relieve me of the bondage of self. And on first reading, that's all I read. Relieve me of the bondage of self. And I thought, that'd be nice. But there's a second part to that sentence. That I may better do thy will. Take away my difficulties. Well, that would be nice. But there's a second part to that sentence, too. That victory over them may bear witness to those I would help, and thy power, thy love, and thy way of life.
And so then you get into the great debate. What is God's will? That can be fun. I believe that God's will is for us to live long and happily in this world, contributing what we can with the minimum amount of pain to others. It's really basically what I believe God's will is. And that entails that word unselfish. That entails that word willingness. There's a big difference between being willing to do something and wanting to.
I had a hard time learning about that. Didn't want to do any of these things. But I became willing when my choices were nil. See, if you wait around until you want to do these steps, you'll probably die drunk. If you don't have the willingness, ask for it. See, this power greater than ourselves has given me one basic thing throughout my life in Alcoholics Anonymous. One basic thing. Willingness. Because, you see, of my own volition, anything that you suggest, my automatic answer is no.
And then I think about it. But first it's no. And anytime anybody asks me to do something, my first reaction is no. And especially if you're talking about twelve spiritually orientated steps, being of sound alcoholic mind, of course it's no, I don't want to. Why would it be anything else? But being willing is a different story. And I think that there's a very clear cut difference between being willing to do something and wanting to do something.
As long as you're waiting to want to, you'll wait a while. It tells us in step three to voice this prayer without reservation. It doesn't say think it, read it and mumble it. Voice it without reservation. That contains a surrender. Voicing it without reservation. I didn't know what I was turning my will and my life over to. I'm so glad that I didn't have to have a degree in theology and have to understand about God before I did this program.
[00:20:00]
I'd have died drunk. I did it because I had faith that my sponsors weren't lying to me. They were walking examples of what this program could do. I could see it on them. They knew what they were doing. They knew where they were going and they knew how to live, how to enjoy it. And I got so that when they said jump, I said, how high? But I argued all the way up there. They often kid me and said they never answered so many questions in all their life.
But you see, I didn't have any education. Being a teenage alcoholic and I found that drinking to 530 in the morning and trying to go to school at nine, something had to go. So I don't need to tell you what went. And so there were some words in here I didn't understand. Words like altruistic. You don't use those in a bootleg joint. They don't talk about words like altruistic and spiritual matters. And so I kept asking questions all the time.
What does this mean? What does that mean? And there's no such thing as a stupid question in AA. If you don't know what your name is, ask somebody before somebody asks you. Having said that prayer, thrown caution to the winds, I felt, placed myself unreservedly in the care of my sponsors, believing in nothing but the hope that there was a chance for me. I had to take a look at step four. Step four suggested that it was a fact-finding and a fact-facing process, that I had to make a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself.
My first question was, what's moral? I had been living in a very immoral world up to that point. I had no ideals. I stopped growing emotionally and mentally and in the world around me at about the age of thirteen. It was me and my bottle. I don't even think I knew who was running the country when I sobered up. I didn't know what my ideals were. And so I figured that because I had understood that I was going to have to become an unselfish human being, and I was prepared to do that, why drag all the muck out?
Why do I have to take this searching and fearless moral inventory? And I thought I'd be writing for weeks. I couldn't remember the chronological order of anything. I couldn't remember half of what I'd done. I just knew it was bad news. I didn't comprehend it at all. My sponsor said, you take your book home and line by line with a ruler, do exactly as it says. And you'll only have to worry about three things, Heather.
You'll have to worry about fear. You'll have to worry about resentment. And you'll have to worry about sex problems. And I said, yeah, but what about all the other stuff? And he said, I think you'll find that all the other stuff falls into one or all three of those categories. And I didn't believe him, so I set out to prove him wrong. A lot of my steps I did just to see if they were lying to me. You know, I can't say that the motives were that tremendous.
I didn't have an honest desire to stop drinking. I had an honest desire to stay out of jail. That's what I had. So I took a look at that step four and I took a look at the fears. And you see, nobody, even me, never thought I had fears because I was a belligerent drunk. You know the type. But let me tell you about an example of the kind of fear that ran me. You see, if anybody had ever suggested that I might be shy or nervous around people, anybody who knew me would laugh because I never appeared that way at all.
What I would do is come roaring into the bar and say, hey, you guys, where's my chair? At the top of my lungs. I have pretty healthy lungs, you know, I don't have this quiet, timid little voice that ladies are supposed to have. Maybe that's because I wasn't a lady. I don't know. At any rate, what would happen is they never saw what preceded, hey, you guys, where's my chair? See, for ten minutes I'd stand outside the barroom door collecting myself.
And then I'd swallow hard and I'd think, what if they won't let me sit with them?
[00:25:02]
What if they don't notice that I'm here? What if they just ignore me? And it came out, hey, you guys, where's my chair? So that they couldn't ignore me. So that they would be embarrassed into finding me a chair, if nothing else. So that I could sit there and be with them. Fear always came out in the form of belligerence. And try to remember that when you get somebody in your group that's about as friendly as a pet rattlesnake and about as easy to take.
It's part of their illness. It tells us in our book that an alcoholic in his cups is an unlovely creature and we think of the guy who smells like a sewer and three days' growth on his face. And we tolerate that. Do we tolerate in the same manner the guy that comes in with an ego as big as a house and a mouth as big as a house? Do we give him the same love and consideration? Do we give him the same time and tolerance?
Because that's just his form of his alcoholism. It was my form of my alcoholism and thank God my sponsors didn't take offense. Thank God they were big enough to walk by all that noise and say there's a sick little girl and bestow upon me the same love and the same tolerance that the guy who came in sick, physically sick got. Because you see, if they turned their back on me and said I can't listen to her for another five minutes, I would have had to die drunk.
But they gave me that. They were big enough to give me that. So fear ran me. Resentments, I didn't resent, I hated. And I either hated you or I loved you. I couldn't just like you. And you fit one or the other. And I resented or hated anybody that didn't do for me what I thought should be done for me and most people weren't doing for me what I thought should be done for me. And so I didn't have a long list of friends, a long list of acquaintances, but I didn't even understand the meaning of the word friend.
And I think maybe you'll understand what I'm saying when I talk about the sex problems I had. They were kind of an odd thing, not the conventional thing you think of when you think of sex problems. I don't know about any of the other gals in here, but I didn't have too many girlfriends. I considered other women strictly competition and they didn't like me anyway. And there was a very valid reason why they didn't like me.
I was always the broad out drinking with their husband till five in the morning. I can understand why they didn't like me. And the ones that weren't in that particular position with me, I feared they were going to take some of the attention. And if the girl was pretty, so much the worse. She really wore the brunt. And so I was blessed with this firecracker killer tongue and it always flapped before my brain worked.
So I made an awful lot of enemies through that. And so if I knew you didn't like me, that gave me just cause for me to hate you. There was a lot of people who didn't like me. And so I had no female friends. Now that eliminated half the world. The other half were wallets. There were fat wallets, easily opened wallets, stingy wallets, good drinking wallets. I didn't view men as people. They were a means to an end.
They weren't people. They didn't have feelings. They were there for me to utilize in whatever fashion they needed to utilize. See sometimes I needed somebody to buy my drinks for me. So I would find the kind of man who liked to buy ladies drinks. And sometimes I needed money. So what I would do is find an ego tripper who thought he was good on the shuffleboard, who would never let a girl beat him and keep upping the pot until finally I could collect.
And that's all that kind of man was for. And occasionally I'd be drinking in a bar a long way from home so then I would have to find a man with a car so I wouldn't have to take a cab. So I didn't view men as people. And that was the other half of my sex problem. So that eliminated the entire world. Those were the kind of sex problems that I dealt with. The rest were incidentals.
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I was single, so it was incidental. I'm not talking about specifics. I'm talking about that whole general attitude I had. It was quite some time before I could find that there were girls in this world and there were men in this world that could indeed become what the word is in friend. And I learned that through Alcoholics Anonymous. I learned that through the people in it. I didn't learn it any other way.
And so when I took a look at all my fears and my resentments and my sex problems, it became very apparent to me why I was not happy. How in the world could I be happy? Those things consumed my life. They ran me. Every action and reaction was based on one or all three of those things. No wonder I drank. You see, I believe that. No wonder I drank. Why in the world wouldn't I drink with all of those things running me?
When alcohol was the only thing that could stop those things from happening for a short period of time, no wonder I chased that dream. Because you see, it was through that sense of ease and comfort that I felt accepted, that I felt love, that I felt tolerance, that I felt comfortable, that I felt easy in my own skin. And all those other problems took a second seat. And of course, over the years, that period of time lasts shorter and shorter, and pretty soon you lose it all together.
So when I had looked at all of these things and discovered that those things were the things that were blocking me from being a happy human being, and certainly they all came under one big title, self-centeredness. And so I knew what they had written in step three was true. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness or it will kill us. And so having done my four step line by line, instruction by instruction, and having strict orders to burn the Hazelden Guide and all the rest of it, just threw that in.
I emerged understanding why. And I got the answer to that endless question, why am I an alcoholic? There is an answer to that. That's why. God, if you had all those problems, you'd drink too. Then I had to take a look at step five. And I immediately asked my sponsor why I had to do step five. I knew what was wrong with me now. Why couldn't I just go ahead and carry on? Why did I have to go and admit this to God, to myself, and to another human being?
The exact nature of my wrongs. Why do I have to do that for? And he said what he always says, Heather, read your book. And in my book, those lines just flew off the page. If we skip this vital step, we may not overcome drinking. Well, that's what I was there for, overcome drinking. And unbeknownst to me, a period of time had passed and I hadn't been drinking. See, I didn't notice. And here was an attitude change already starting.
I wanted to do better at these things. My biggest concern when I finished each step was to make sure I had done it right. And I was so worried about I might have missed something. I might have forgot something. And I look at those days now, and of course I had every chance in the world with that attitude. Because I was just worried about doing it right. I wasn't worried about hiding something. And so when it said if we skip this vital step, we may not overcome drinking.
And in the book, it says we pocket our pride and go to it. Now, I don't know what I thought pocket your pride meant. But I had an appointment with a minister that my sponsor had made for me. And I expected to see this big ominous man looking down at me and saying, Okay, Heather, what have you done? And so I went through a whole routine for about two hours before my fifth step. I got too much makeup on, so I'd go and wash my face.
My skirt's too short. That was in the days of mini skirts. Can't wear a mini skirt to the minister's office. Maybe I'll wear pigtails. I'll look innocent. I don't know what I thought pocket your pride meant. Finally, I got there. And again, I had to ask this power.
[00:35:01]
This power of hope. This power of selflessness. To give me the willingness to do this thing. And when I was all finished doing this thing. Illuminating every dark cranny of the past. Talking about the exact nature of my wrongs, my jealousies, those humiliating things. Those things you'd die before you'd want anybody to know. And I'd looked at the floor, and I'd looked at the ceiling, and I'd looked everywhere but at him.
Because I was humiliated. I didn't want anybody to know. But the price had been paid. If we skip this vital step, we may not overcome drinking. Many times we have seen a man skip this vital step and not overcome drinking. So if for no other reason, then you don't want to do it again, do it the first time. And that was a lot of my reason for doing it right the first time. And not shaving off the sides and the corners.
And following directions in that book precisely. Because I didn't want to do it again. It had been painful enough. But you see, whatever pain came out of these steps, came the growth with it. There's nothing in my life today that could ever be as painful as that last year drinking was. Nothing. It tells us when we've finished our fifth step to go home, take this book down from the shelf, and carefully review the first five proposals, making sure we have omitted nothing.
That too is part of the instructions. And so I looked over my first five proposals and hoped I had omitted nothing. And in the book gave me the first of many promises. It said that we can be alone at perfect peace and ease. It came that word ease again. That our fears fall from us. And we begin to see the truth. That our fears fall from us. And we begin to feel the nearness of our Creator. That word begin was really important to me.
Up to that point I had felt nothing. I had just kept doing it as I was told, hoping that I was doing it right and that they weren't lying to me. And so the first experience I had with beginning to feel the nearness of my Creator was kind of a rotten thing. I developed a thing called conscience. I started to feel something inside when I was going to do something I shouldn't be doing. I didn't put it there, and I'm sure not capable of getting rid of it, or I would.
That knot in my tummy didn't, was not self-produced. And that gave me a basic indication that something had changed. Some of my values had changed. Every time I was going to tell a lie, I mean I just was a chronic liar. You know, I'd tell you about my dog, I didn't have a dog. There was one occasion when I was telling somebody about my dog in the beer parlor and I kept saying, I have to go home and feed my dog.
And I was halfway home in the cab before I realized that I didn't have a dog. But I started to know when I was lying. I started to know when I was going to throw out a cutting remark. And I started to know that if I wanted to be rid of that feeling, I had to stop doing the things that gave it to me. Nothing too spiritual about that, it's pretty basic. If you don't want to feel sick, don't eat the stuff that makes you sick.
And so, little by little, I started to have an attitude change. It tells you in this book, do not let any prejudice you may have against spiritual terms of speech, do not let any prejudice you may have against spiritual terms deter you from honestly asking you what they mean to you. And so when I first heard the term spiritual experience, I had visions of me shaving my head, banging a tambourine at the corner of Portage and Main.
I didn't really want to be that good. I was worried about becoming a paragon of virtue and my sponsor said, don't worry Heather. The term spiritual experience means quite a different thing. And again, I was told, Heather, read your book. And it's explained, the term spiritual experience is explained that it's an attitude change. That ideas, emotions and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of people like us are suddenly cast to one side.
[00:40:02]
And a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate. And here I am saying, do you think I did my step five right? Do you think I got a chance? Certainly a new set of conceptions and motives had begun to dominate. And the truth of the matter was, I had begun to have a spiritual experience just like that book promised me. Right at step five. I started to be able to walk past the St. Charles Hotel without getting the gurglies.
I started to look forward to going to meetings. I started to make friends. I wasn't very good at being a friend, but you people were. You knew that I was more scared of you than you were of me, so you took the time and the trouble to take your hand out of the pocket and say hi Heather. I hope I don't ever forget that. That the new guy is always twice as scared of me as I am of him. So some of those things started to happen.
And so I had to take a look at step six. I had to become entirely ready to have God remove these defects of character. And again, they tell us, willingness is indispensable. It doesn't say optional anywhere in that book. You know that? I look for that word optional all over that book and it's not in there. Indispensable. Not too much question about that. And so I thought about things like being rid of my bad habits and then I'd be the most popular girl in town.
I thought that'd be nice. And they weren't talking about bad habits. They were talking about self-centeredness. In all the forms it takes. That's what they were talking about. See, I'm the kind of girl that if you need a ride to the airport at five in the morning, I'll give you five bucks and say take a cab. No way I'd get up and drive you to the airport. Hell would freeze over first. And it's the same thing when Alcoholics Anonymous.
Somebody asks you to take a new guy to a meeting. And you say, well, make sure he gets there and you shuffle him off onto somebody else. That kind of self-centeredness I'd take a reading on. The things of omission as well as the things of commission. The things I wasn't doing that I could be doing, that I should be doing. What's it cost for a smile? Thirty seconds to stop and say, how are you tonight?
Am I unselfish enough to do that? Am I even aware? And that's what step six is all about to me. Becoming aware. Asking for the willingness to be aware. And so when I had asked for this willingness and felt that I was in fact ready, then I had no choice but to carry on to step seven. That being that I humbly asked God to remove these defects of character. And I did. That being that I humbly asked God to remove these defects of character.
And so how do I do that? Well, again, there's a prayer written out for me. And that prayer goes, my creator, I am now willing you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character, and here's the clinching phrase, that stands in the way of my usefulness. It's where I get my concept of God's will. Removal of the defects of character that stand in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows.
And what stands in the way of my usefulness? My self-centeredness. I'm worrying about number one. I've got no time to worry about you. And that's the way it had been all my life. Grant me strength as I go out from here to do thy bidding. Strength to do God's will. To have those defects of character removed long enough to do those things for other people that need doing. There was a time when I could walk by somebody with tears streaming down their face and not even see them.
And I'm not sure whether it's a curse or a blessing, but I can't do that anymore. I have to do something. There's a little example of step seven that stands out very loud and clear in my mind. I remember one night it was birthday night at our group. It was birthday night at our group, and birthday night always meant to me that I had to sit still and keep quiet for another half hour. I didn't like birthday night much, thought it was a Mickey Mouse affair, who cares about a cake and a candle?
[00:45:06]
And I couldn't understand what the big fuss was about. And so one night I was sitting there at birthday night and I felt this lump come up in my throat, and tears stinging the back of my eyes, and I started to squirm in my chair. I couldn't understand what was happening to me, I thought I was losing my mind. I mean I didn't have a gun at my head, I wasn't in any pain, what in hell was I going to cry for?
There was a fella taking his first year cake, he wasn't even a particularly good friend of mine. And so I knew I had to get out of that room before I actually cried, I mean can you imagine crying in front of AA people? So I'm up and off my chair and out the door as fast as I can go, and my sponsor's up and off his chair and out the door right after me, grabs me by the seat in my burnt out blue jeans, and he says, what do you think you're doing?
I said, I can't go back in there David, I'm going to cry. He said, well, welcome to the world Heather. It was the first time that I had felt anything for another human being that wasn't putting gold in my pockets. You see before something good happened to you, the biggest feeling I could stir in me was envy, and I'd have to hate you for it. If something bad happened to you I'd say the required social, gee that's too bad, and carry on.
I didn't feel for anybody but me. That was my first experience of feeling. And then I went on a 12-step call with my sponsor. And I hear myself saying things, and I'm looking around to see who said them. Like you've got to come to AA, it's the only way. And I'm saying, good God. And he just sort of sat back and let me ramble. And I couldn't seem to stop worrying about whether this guy got to AA or not.
And so I guess maybe my defects of character were removed long enough for me to care whether he got to AA or not. And I wasn't too busy to go and meet that person and bring him to a meeting. The defects of character would stand in the way of my usefulness. Stand in the way of me caring what happens to you. Step 8 was where I had to make a list of all the people that I'd harmed and become willing, that word willing, to make amends to them all.
The kind of society that I spent my last few years in, the law was do it to them before they do it to you. And so I felt that all I had done was follow that law. I didn't really understand, with the exception of with my family, that I'd harmed anybody. It was a dog-eat-dog world, and if you didn't eat them first, you got et. And so I had to ask again for the willingness. And I kind of expected that I'd wake up on Thursday morning feeling willing to go out and make amends to the whole world that I had damaged.
And it didn't happen that way at all. The way it happened was piecemeal. All of a sudden I would feel the urge or the need to see a particular person. And sometimes I even had the good fortune to just simply run into a person. But I spent longer on step 8 than any other step in this book. How often have you been at a meeting and you're talking about step 8 and 9, and step 8 gets a cursory reading and the rest of the meeting is on step 9?
You can't do step 9 without step 8. You have to become willing. There's no point in going to see a person and saying, I'm so sorry for what I did, but God damn it, you deserved it. That's what happens if you don't have the willingness. The chip will show through. That chip on your shoulder will show through. So when I made my list and prayed for that willingness, and by this time the God of my understanding had changed, changed from hope to forgiveness, because I'd seen it all around me in Alcoholics Anonymous.
I had watched the forgiveness take place. And my God changed from hope and forgiveness to hope, forgiveness and tolerance. I started to understand that people had tolerated me a great deal. And the sharing of time, which is perhaps the biggest gift of all.
[00:50:03]
The people that I remember and think of with the most fondness are the people who shared their time with me. And so that was a part of my God too. And love. That nice warm feeling you get when you're around other people. That too became my God. And so if you have an aversion to the word God, then you're going to have to go around saying all those things every time you mean to say what you mean. It's much easier to just shorten it all up and call it God.
Isn't it the very opposite of self-centeredness? Isn't that what this program is all about? Unselfishness? Giving? I remember very distinctly deciding that a God of my understanding could not be the God who grew the flowers and the trees because that God never covered any of my bounce checks. It seemed entirely unrelated. And I couldn't believe in a punishing God because if God is love, then he hasn't got time to go around testing me every time I turn around.
Do you know that we human beings are the only creature on the face of the earth that gets even? I mean, can you imagine a rabbit remembering for ten years some other rabbit made him mad? How do we in all our ego attach our human character defects to God? We decide he's made up of all of those things that are wrong with us. I don't believe God tests me. If somebody in Toronto phones me at 5 o'clock and I'm in a hurry to get out of the office, that's not God testing me, that's some jerk in Toronto testing me.
But God gives me the strength and the willingness and the tolerance to cope with that jerk from Toronto testing me. That's the God of my understanding. The God of strength and courage. He's there to give, not take, punish, hurt. To give me the strength to do the things that I've got to do. To face the things in this world that need facing. And so when I did my Step 8 and concluded each of my Step 8 subjects with my Step 9, which was that I had to go out and make direct demands to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
And that except when to do so would injure them or others is pretty important. If you've been sleeping with a guy next door, don't tell his wife and call an amend. That causes pain. Teenie and all that, but it's happened. Don't go up to some guy that you've hated for 10 years and didn't know you hated him. Why hurt him? Amends for the things we have done that have hurt people. Except when to do so would injure them or others.
And it takes a lot of self-searching and honesty. See, for me, there is no point in going to my family and saying, I'm sorry, once more with feeling. They've heard all the I'm sorry's that they ever want to hear. Because, you see, that used to be my way out of everything. I'd say, I'm sorry, what do you want me to do, open my veins? And they'd look at you, well, no. Sorry was always a cop-out for me.
It was my final excuse. Some amends are living amends. Some amends are the doing amends. See, as long as my family is alive, then I've got to try to be a sister to be proud of, a daughter to be proud of. I've got to be a part of the family, instead of, oh, Heather, oh, yes, that child, yeah, mm-hmm. To try to give something to our family instead of taking from it. So that amend I'll never be quite through with.
It says in our book, if we have been painstaking about this phase of our development, that being steps one through nine, some wonderful things are going to happen to us. And there's a tremendous exercise to try next time you're feeling poorly for yourself. In this book, there's a page that says just exactly that.
[00:55:05]
Some wonderful things are going to happen to us before we're even halfway through. And if you look at each of those things and see how they have happened in your life, you won't emerge feeling sorry for yourself anymore. And those things are the things that make us happy in Alcoholics Anonymous, and they're promised to us. They are a direct result of being painstaking about this phase of our development.
We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. Freedom always used to mean just not being locked up. It means a much different thing to me now. Freedom means the freedom to be Heather. You see, always when I was drinking, I heard people say to me, Heather, why don't you just be yourself? And I'd say, well, which self did you like? And I would ask it in all seriousness. Which one was it that I happened to hit it right on that time?
Now I know what a Heather is. A Heather is another member of Alcoholics Anonymous, a part of this wonderful fellowship, allowed to work and do, allowed to feel joy, to feel warmth, to feel tolerance, to feel kindness, to feel love, to feel God. That's what Heather is. A part of, not standing on the outside looking in anymore. And happiness. Happiness always depended on what you did for me. Happiness depends now on what I do for you.
And so I get a lot more happiness out of life. See, I feel the results of the 12-step calls. I feel the results of helping somebody go through these steps. I feel so good inside. There was never a hit of cocaine invented that could give me the feeling that this program gives me when I am allowed to do for you instead of having to depend on happiness from what you do for me. And isn't that the true thing of love?
The true meaning of it? Love isn't classified as let's make a deal. To give and to feel love as a result of it. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. All I wanted when I got here was instant amnesia. I didn't want to remember anything. My batting average wasn't that good on doing good things. But you see where I came from was sort of a filthy bootleg joint. And I lived with two fellas that had records as long as your arm.
And I'm not sure which one I lived with. I think I probably ran them both about even. Big on morals at that time. Real high on them. And in that bootleg joint we had several clientele come. And there was a floor for gambling and a floor for drinking and a floor for doping and we had a little bit of everything for everybody, you know. And of course we didn't talk about Alcoholics Anonymous there. And so some of our clientele that came there had never heard of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I was out at Stony Mountain Penitentiary about three or four months after I was sober visiting a friend of mine who was in there. Most of my friends were in there, by the way. And at the same time one of our girls that used to come to our bootleg joint was in there visiting another fellow and said to him, And the guy said, No, no, she's got into this AA thing. And so Pam said, Because she looks so happy.
And so the fellow she was visiting had been attending meetings in the joint and he explained, And so Pam left and the next day she called me. So Pam left, and the next day she called me, and she said, Heather, if you can get straight, anybody can, even me. So how can I regret the past? It's the most valuable tool that I have.
[01:00:05]
That very lesson, that day in the penitentiary, has carried through for me a great deal further. It reminds me that I may be the only walking copy of the big book available, and I'd better not be tearing a strip off somebody, because I don't know who's watching. Maybe I'd better walk tall and wear my Alcoholics Anonymous everywhere I go, not just in the club rooms. It's easy to be a good A.A. member in the club rooms.
What about on the street? What about at work? You may be the only copy of this book walking around. Wear it well. And I feel that, and I believe that strongly. We will comprehend the word serenity, and we will know peace. I don't know about you, but that period of time between when I laid my head in the pillow at night and when I actually went to sleep was a nightmare. I hated that period of time alone with my own head.
It scared me half to death. Now I sleep real well at night now. I'm comfortable in my own skin. I can make mistakes and laugh at me. I was laughing about a mistake I made. Don told me that Stan would be calling, and I should tell Stan what I look like so that he could meet me at the airport. And so Stan called, and he hardly got hello out of his mouth, and I'm explaining what I look like. And so finally he listens to this drivel for about ten minutes on his dime, and then he said, why don't you just page me at the airport?
There was a time when I could have died of humiliation over doing something like that. Today it's funny. I just got a message here, Von Tripp, to please go to the door at the rear of the room. There's an emergency. So Von, would you like to head to the back of the room? See the power to be able to laugh at oneself allows you the loss of all the insecurities, all the fears of not being accepted. Earl Stan was stuck sitting with me on the plane whether he liked it or not.
And we had a good trip. But if I had been dying of humiliation over the stupid damn way I had talked on the phone and given him all this great long description, I'd have been dying a thousand deaths for three hours on the airplane today. I'd have had a rotten day. So yes, I know the meaning of serenity, and I know the meaning of the word peace, comfortable in my own skin, feeling good where I live.
That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. That feeling of uselessness disappears when you get useful, not one minute before. Serenity disappears when you start having a little compassion for someone else, start caring about your fellow man. And when you're busy worrying about that new guy, or even the older member who's having a tough time, you're busy worrying about him, he ain't busy worrying about you.
You can't maintain physically two thoughts in your head at the same time. You got to be thinking one thing or the other. They can't take place simultaneously. So if you're worrying about him, you can't worry about you. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result, and we talked about what spiritual awakening is, a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate.
Our fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. Our fear of people leaves when it's replaced by faith in God, when you're busy trying to do for other people instead of worrying about what they think of you. Every time that I try to do right by people and rectify it with God later, I get into all kinds of trouble. And that sort of keeps the ego under control. I try to do God's will first and I'll be all right with the people.
[01:05:00]
If I try to be right with the people and then right with God, I get it all screwed up. And I come out of it all unhappy again. And I start getting restless, irritable, and discontented again. Economic insecurity leaves when you start going to work every day. Start doing your job. They give you a paycheck regularly. And unless you've discovered the joys of plastic money, which I unfortunately did, then the law of averages tells you that sooner or later with enough of those checks, you're going to pay off that monumental sum.
And things will level out. And not only that, what happens is you become more concerned about people in your life than about things. It's damn hard for me to worry about the fact that I drive a Valiant instead of a Cadillac when I'm talking to a man that doesn't know how he's going to feed his kids. Damn hard. It's very difficult for me to worry about not having a bunch of fancy new clothes when I'm sitting there talking to somebody about the fact that they're standing there in a hospital nightgown and gown.
See, those things are not an obsession anymore. Maybe I think a Cadillac would look good on me, don't you? But I don't have to lose any sleep over it anymore. And I used to. I used to just kill me about all the stuff you had and I didn't. Our whole attitude, just like it promised, changes. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. You know, at one time a broken shoelace was just cause for a three-week drunk?
Or an all-day snit? Or if the light changes to red on you when you're in a hurry? The traffic system, for God's sake, can ruin your day. And when we were drinking, and sometimes when we're sober, isn't it just like that? If the house falls down, we handle that real well. If the doorknob falls off, we have fits. We get so we intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us because we start living in a spiritual world.
We start instinctively doing things for others. And when you're trying to do God's will, not too much can pull you down. You intuitively handle things that used to baffle us. The last promise that we're given is a promise in which I try to base my entire life today. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. You see, first God gave me Alcoholics Anonymous, not something I was big on.
Didn't even want it for myself. And then he gave me the people in Alcoholics Anonymous, taught me how to be a friend and to have the rewards of a warm and understanding friendship with many people. Something I didn't even know was available. And the last thing that God gives me is a program laid out in black and white, which I've tried to explain with some clarity, a program designed for living and the willingness to work those tools, the willingness to do the things that are laid out in this book.
And because he gives me that willingness, and because he gives me the strength, and because he gives me all of those things, the kindness, the tolerance, the love, removes my defects of character long enough for me to be of service. Because he gives me those things, then those promises have all come true for me in one degree or another. And they'll continue to grow and be more fulfilling as I go on in this world.
You want it? You got it. You want to be happy? It's right here in black and white, A, B, C, 1, 2, 3.
[01:10:01]
Twelve steps. It's almost worth it. Almost worth it. Doesn't it sound just a tiny bit easier than facing the fact that you may unfortunately live another thirty years with your head in the toilet bowl? See that's how it added up to me. Dying didn't scare me. It was living another twenty years like that that scared me. Going around hating, full of fear, remorse, living with nightmares and terror about what I would do next.
I don't ever want to have to experience that again. The most wonderful thing that I found about Alcoholics Anonymous is I don't have to do anything alone. See, I can reach out these two hands and sure as God made little green apples, there'll be another AA member from that side come and hold this hand and another one from that side hold this hand if I can swallow my pride long enough to say I need help.
Did I not say it the day I walked into Alcoholics Anonymous? What has changed? I've got alcoholism. I want to be happy. I love being happy. I'd like to close tonight with an experience that I had. We talk about the language of the heart and that by the way is why Alcoholics Anonymous works. It's the language of the heart. It's not some joker telling you what to do. It's some joker saying here's what I had to do and I'll show you how.
It's a program of feelings, growing feelings. One stage of my drinking career I went on a smart-nup trip. The smart-nup trip consisted of phoning from Prince George, British Columbia, where I happened to be at that time, to Winnipeg where my family lived and asking if I could come home because I had a hotel bill that I couldn't possibly pay and I was sick and I didn't know what else to do. So I phoned and I asked if I could come home and there was no question about me coming home.
I got on the train and I came home and I felt so good because when I got off that train nobody said, what kind of trouble are you in this time? How much is it going to cost us this time? Are you going to behave yourself while you're here? There wasn't any of that. There was a meal on the table for me and a room made up for me. And welcome home, Heather. No flack, just love. Just love. And so I had some odd feelings about that and I thought that maybe I should try to keep it clean for a while.
And so I tried so hard that I got myself a job. The only job I could get at that time was a job loading trucks. And I weighed in at about 90 pounds and I went to work in an automotive wholesaler company in the back shop with 15 fellas, bathing motors, grinding valves and loading and unloading trucks. And so that has served me well too because when I get some 6 foot, 180 pound bruiser coming up to me and saying I'm too sick to go to work, you got to know what I'm going to say to him.
And so while I was doing this, I was also fooling around with some of the fellas from the press club. And the way I was fooling around with them was that I used to model on the side. You see, I'd come home from work with this battery acid blue jeans and steel toed work boots and trying to get the grime and the muck off me in time to go out and model and walk and talk like a female. It was no easy trick.
And so we would have fashion shows and I got involved with the press and so on and so forth and just dying a thousand deaths that they'd find out really what I did. For really. Anyway they thought it'd be kind of fun if they put my… Anyway, they thought it'd be kind of fun if they put my name in for the Miss Manitoba pageant. And so I got this call at work saying I had been accepted into the Miss Manitoba pageant. And my first reaction was disbelief. I said, yeah, sure, and I hung up and thought whoever the ass it was
[01:15:01]
that had the time to pull a joke like that. And then they phoned my boss and they told him the same thing. And he laughed. They finally got it through that this really was the fact of the matter. And there were well over 70 girls involved in it. And so I thought to myself, well, I'll stay in this thing until I'm eliminated because I wanted my mom and dad to have something to be proud of me for. See, when all the other kids were bringing home A's and B's on their report cards, my mother didn't even know where her kid was. See, from the time I was 13 right on through, I was always running away. Can you imagine the terror that my family experienced knowing their 13-year-old daughter was somewhere between coasts? And I would bravely announce that I knew what I was doing. When I think of the nights my mother and my father laid awake and my little brother and sister wondered if I was dead or alive, it makes it real hard for me to think I was cute and funny when I was drinking. Real hard. And so I went into this pageant thinking, well, at least when my mother's a grandmother, she can go around and say, well, I had one daughter who was once in the Miss Manitoba pageant, you know. Now, there was only one problem with this theory.
I didn't get eliminated. And I had been doing some pretty rank things. And so when our pictures started being spread all over the newspapers, I just held my breath every time that phone rang. I just died a thousand deaths thinking it might be some drunk I had rolled who is now prepared to blackmail me about it. I can't tell you what a horrifying experience, the finest experience in my life, should have been.
But I stuck it out, having lots of moxie, until talent night. Now, these young ladies, the other nine that were left, had some specific talents. Some of them could sing. Now, I can rap out the first chorus of Hello, Dolly, and that's about it. Most of them had an ability to dance. Well, you've got to know the kind of dance and I would do would not be fitting there. I had grade nine education and I knew how to grind valves, bath motors, and load and unload trucks. What was I going to do on talent night?
So at about three in the morning, I'm sitting there with a pencil and paper in my hand. And my first inclination is I think Toronto would be a good place to live. And if I get going now, I can be there by morning. I started to try to think of some other things that I could do and was coming up empty. And then my next thought was, how the hell did I get into this mess in the first place? And I was really annoyed that I had got myself into this.
And it was too late to get myself out of it without leaving town. And I thought of my poor mother and what she would think and how she would have to explain how I just sort of disappeared into thin air again. And the answer to how I got into this mess, maybe many of you have heard Tommy B tell the story. It's exactly the way it happened to me. And out of my pen came what I'm about to talk about now.
I don't have much education, so you'll forgive the literary in value of it. And it's not original, but it's exactly the way it happened to me. This story has happened before. Tommy told that story before. But it in actual fact happened to me. Now, listen, kind people, as I tell you today, of an unhappy young man who erred in his way. He's sick with remorse over all that he's done. And it's been a hell of a life for one so young.
He didn't mean to do all the things that he did. And people always said he was a likable kid. But somehow when the boy would feel afraid and alone, he'd follow those people with a confident tone. And now it's time for him to leave this confining place. And the young fellow can feel
[01:20:01]
his parents' disgrace. So with a pain in his heart and an ache in his soul, he writes mom and dad to explain his goal. Dear parents, please, I know I've done wrong. And I know I've hurt you both for so very long. I don't deserve your kindness. But I have to know. Will you teach me to care, to love and to grow? Because at nine tomorrow, I'll be on that train. And I'll be out in that world of temptation again. If you can find it in your hearts to receive me, tie just a single white ribbon on our old cherry tree. Oh, but if I've killed all your love for me, I'll understand and I'll ride on through to the North Country. I won't write you or call you anymore, though my heart be broken and sore. I'll try to walk with a happy gait and an honesty and courage. I'll concentrate. I feel my new life has finally just begun. And I love you both. You sign it, your son.
And when that young man boarded the train, his nose stayed pressed to the window pane. He couldn't cry. He couldn't eat. His knees were water, heavy feet. The train then neared that old cherry tree and his stomach tightened and he couldn't breathe. And on that tree, not a single white ribbon to be seen. But five thousand white ribbons adorned that foliage of green. The lad cried tears of gratitude and happiness. And he flew over the platform to the arms of forgiveness. Now I'll end with the meaning of this story of mine. To err is human, but to forgive, that's divine. And you see, that's what you, the members of Alcoholics Anonymous, the members of Al-Anon and Al-Ateem, have done for the likes of me. Stretched out your arms of forgiveness and filled the likes of me with gratitude and happiness. And for that, I love you dearly. God bless you.